The present invention relates to an automatic taking-off and landing system, according to which a flying object can take off and land automatically.
In photographing or surveying operation from a position high up in the sky, it is possible to acquire such types of information, which cannot be obtained by photographing from ground surface or by surveying operation on the ground surface, or such types of information can be obtained on a place where no person can enter and where it is difficult to perform photographing or surveying operation. In recent years, with the progress of performance characteristics of a flying object such as a small type airplane under remote control or a small type helicopter etc., with the improvement of remote control technique, further, with the improvement of performance characteristics of image pickup device and with technical promotion to miniaturize devices and instruments, it is now possible to provide an image pickup device on a small type flying object and to perform the completely automated photographing from a position high up in the sky by remote control.
For instance, a small type flying object is taken off from a predetermined position (e.g. from a taking-off and landing deck) by remote control or according to a program incorporated in the small type flying object. Then, the small type flying object is flown in a predetermined range to take photographs. After the completion of the photographing, the flying object is operated to return to a preset position where taking-off and landing deck is placed, and further, the flying object is landed automatically on the taking-off and landing deck.
When a small type flying object is operated to take off, to fly and to land automatically, taking-off and landing is difficult to operate, in particular, it is difficult to make a small flying object land at a predetermined position. Therefore, to make the small flying object fly autonomously, it is necessary to establish a technique to perform automatic taking-off and landing in safe and reliable manner by simple control.
In the Japanese Patent Publication JP-A-2000-85694, a landing support system is disclosed, which describes an operation to perform landing of a small type flying object at a predetermined position. In the Japanese Patent Gazette No. 4253239, a navigation system is disclosed, which is used to accomplish landing of a helicopter at a point as desired according to image recognition. The Japanese Patent Gazette No. 2662111, an automatic landing guidance method is disclosed, which describes a procedure for guidance of vertical taking-off and landing operation by using a plurality of image sensors. Also, the Japanese Patent Publication JP-A-9-302628 discloses a movable type taking-off and landing facility for taking-off and landing operation of a small type flying object.